FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT UMAR FAROUK ABDULMUTALLAB - PAGE 2

Fresh off her speech at the Tea Party National Convention, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin on Sunday left open the possibility that she would run for president in 2012 while asserting that President Barack Obama would lose if the election were held today. Appearing on "Fox News Sunday," Palin was asked about a recent poll that showed her topping a field of potential GOP candidates by 5 percentage points. She said she would run for the 2012 nomination "if I believe that that is the right thing to do for our country and for the Palin family," according to a network transcript of her interview with Chris Wallace.

The nation's intelligence director testified Wednesday that it was a mistake for authorities to give the suspect in the Christmas Day airline bombing plot a reading of his Miranda rights and access to an attorney without first using elite interrogators to question him or consulting with top officials in Washington. The remark by Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair amounted to an admission that U.S. counterterrorism officials squandered a chance to gather valuable intelligence after the failed attack, in addition to committing a series of blunders in the handling of intelligence data that prevented them from stopping the incident.

By Mark Hosenball WASHINGTON, Feb 19 (Reuters) - U.S. authorities issued a warning on Wednesday to airlines flying to the United States to watch out for militants who may have hidden bombs in their shoes, U.S. government sources said. The warning came from the Department of Homeland Security, the sources said, and it is consistent with concerns security agencies have about militants trying to smuggle explosives onto airplanes in shoes, cosmetics or liquids. The sources said the warning principally applied to flights originating overseas and heading for the United States, rather than domestic flights or planes headed overseas from the United States.

U.S. counterterrorism agencies are investigating whether a U.S.-born Islamic cleric who has risen to become an operational leader of the al-Qaida affiliate in Yemen played a key role in the attempted Christmas Day airplane bombing near Detroit, intelligence and law enforcement officials said Wednesday. Intercepts and other information point to connections between the terrorism suspect, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, and Anwar al-Awlaki -- who had communicated with the accused U.S. Army gunman in last month's attack at Fort Hood, Texas, that left 13 people dead.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A U.S. judge on Monday dismissed claims against KLM Royal Dutch Airlines in a lawsuit holding it liable for injuries a New York man says he sustained while helping to stop the so-called "underwear bomber" from blowing up a plane in 2009. U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon ruled that the federal court in New York lacked jurisdiction to rule on KLM, in part because the company is based in the Netherlands. Theophilus Maranga said he suffered physical and emotional injuries, including injuries to his ribs and a fear of flying, in trying to overpower Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab on the flight, according to a lawsuit filed in November.

The federal government's no-fly list is controversial, secretive and highly selective -- and under intense scrutiny from congressional leaders and President Barack Obama after last week's attempted bombing aboard a Northwest Airlines flight bound for Detroit. The list is meant to prohibit known or suspected terrorists from boarding planes within or headed for the United States. It includes fewer than 4,000 people, fewer than 200 of them American, and notably did not include Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian accused of attempting to detonate an explosive on Northwest Flight 253 on Christmas Day. Obama criticized the federal intelligence community this week for not piecing together tips about Abdulmutallab, which the president said should have landed him on the no-fly list.

The Obama administration pledged Thursday to close gaps in the intelligence system that enabled a man carrying a bomb to board a U.S.-bound plane, and to create a better system for analyzing the clues and tips flooding the intelligence community. The White House based its assertions on the early findings of two separate inquires into what it calls the "human and systemic failures" that took place in the run-up to a Nigerian man's alleged attempt to detonate a bomb aboard a plane flying from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas.

By Leonard Pitts, a syndicated columnist based in Washington: McClatchy-Tribune | January 6, 2010

On Christmas Day, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a student from Nigeria, allegedly tried to blow up a jetliner bound for Detroit. He failed due to some defect in his explosives and the quick reflexes of passengers who subdued him. As you might expect, this close call has some of us asking hard, but necessary questions: Would full body scanners have stopped Abdulmutallab before he could bring explosives aboard the plane? Shouldn't the fact that his father alerted U.S. officials that his son had become radicalized have flagged him as a security risk?